How God transformed our hearts for His Kingdom in Africa through the adoption of our children.

Humor

I’ve been blessed with several black female friends who, when they found out I was adopting a black girl, issued me a challenge: “You have to take care of her hair.”

Of course, I thought. Wouldn’t all mothers take care of their little girl’s hair?

Clearly I was naive as to the depth and complexity of the hairable world of hair of little black girls.

Long before I met Addie, I was introduced to the blog-bible of Caucasian mothers who have adopted black girls, “Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care.” I began to study at the feet of the author, who taught lessons of cowashing, shingling, plaiting, and carrier oils. It would take months to read and understand her years of experience and wisdom. I’m not quite there yet.

Out of all the hairstyles I studied, I decided that the one I liked best was just a natural Afro. I so hoped that Addie’s hair would be ringlets that would be naturally suited for a cute curly Afro!

When I first met Addie, her head had just been shaved days before. Apparently, lice was common in the orphanage, so the children’s hair was regularly shaved. I would have much rather dealt with lice than a year of, “Why is your little boy wearing all pink?” I was so sad for Addie’s shaved head, but as her hair grew, I realized that it was growing into perfect tiny spiral curls. I was elated that my little girl would have beautiful perfectly ringlet-ed natural hair.

Fast forward 10 months.

My bathroom closet looks like a drug store clearance rack — a hodgepodge of products — conditioners, detanglers, moisturizers, curl activators, frizz tamers and on and on. We’ve experimented with a dozen different products in different combinations, and all with the same results: Addie’s hair looks adorable when she walks out the door, and like a rat’s nest when she walks back in.

I realized that I needed to call in backup.

So I met recently with two of my black female friends to discuss the trials of the hairable world of little black girls.

They assured me I would do fine. Yeah right.

I explained that after trying to do “natural hair,” I am waving a flag of defeat and trying to do something different with Addie’s hair. “But my problem is that I can’t find anyone who does black little girls’ hair. I’ve Googled numerous terms and can’t come up with anyone.”

Both of my friends laughed. “Oh, you don’t Google these folks. At least no one good. You have to have to find them by word-of-mouth.”

So I asked them for a reference. One decided to give me the name of someone she had recently used and that person’s cell phone number. “Candice. 555-1212.*”

“There’s only a first name here,” I remarked. “Can I have her last name?”

“Oh, there are no last names in black women’s hair. But tell her that Shari Jarvis* with the Senegal twists gave you the number and tell her your story.”

“Gotcha,” I replied. “Where is her salon located?”

“No, no, no,” she chided. “You ask her to do it ‘on the side,’ and she’ll come to your house to do Addie’s hair. It’s actually even cheaper that way.”

She was speaking my language. I proceeded with my line of questioning. “So if I like a black woman’s hair, can I ask her what products she uses in her hair?”

“Nope, that’s a secret.”

“So, I can’t ask who does someone’s hair, or what products they use, but recommendations are all word-of-mouth?”

“Exactly.”

“What if I were to do her hair myself? I’ve seen this great website that shows me how to do Bantu knots, cornrows, and extensions.”

They assured me that extensions were beyond my scope, but I could probably attempt something more simple. By this time, I was starting to get nervous about having anything to do with Addie’s hair. They reminded me that she had to sleep in a satin sleep cap with a satin pillowcase. Be careful about her rubbing her head against the car seat, and make sure she doesn’t play with her hair.

They also reminded me that they themselves were thankful that they had boys and never had to deal with the hairable experiences of dealing with the complexity of little girl hair. Very reassuring.

So Sunday night, I attempted to put Bantu knots into Addie’s hair, but I soon realized that her hair wasn’t long enough, so I quickly switched to comb coils. The rest of the night wasn’t so quick. THREE HOURS LATER, I finished my first hairstyle on Addie, with no small amount of whining. Addie didn’t enjoy it much either. (Ain’t nobody got time for ‘dat!)

How long will it last? I’m told that many styles will last for 2-3 weeks, which is 2-3 days in Addie time.

When I picked up Addie from day camp today, the black woman sitting at the entrance table complimented me on Addie’s hair.

“I really had no idea what I was doing, so it means a lot to me that you say that,” I replied.

“Are you kidding me? I have no idea how to do that!” she replied.

“Oh, it wasn’t too hard. Maybe I’ll be able to put you in touch with some people . . . once I know you a little better.”

When we became parents, we didn’t start with infants, we started with “ready-made” kids. Well, ready-made kids who spoke another language and came from a completely different culture. There was no time to learn their personalities before embarking on disciplinary methods. We often didn’t know if their behavior was disobedience or ignorance. We didn’t know how much they could be trusted or if they were plotting evil against us.

We were thrown into the deep end of parenting awfully quickly. We were four strangers trying to become a family, one way or another. So along the road to figuring out this wild-style parenting, I discovered that Ken and I had some really unique gifts that we never realized that we had.

Our surprising parenting skills:

The ability to make up a rule for no apparent reason. Tonight I literally told the kids, “You cannot have a cookie until you finish your popcorn.” Why? I don’t even know. But somehow it seemed like the right thing to do. And in a strange but not entirely unexpected twist, only one child earned a cookie.

To have a straight face when our kids are hilariously naughty. Palmer’s biggest crime at school has been giggling. He’s a goofy boy, and if he gets tickled about something, he has a hard time keeping a straight face. Still, we understand that inappropriate laughter can be very disruptive, so when his teacher sent home notes that he was giggling in class, we had to take it seriously. But to punish a child for laughing too much is a skill that has to be developed, even if the child’s story is hilarious. The parental laughter is saved until after 8:00 p.m. when the kids are asleep.

To come up with double-cross punishments. Many internationally adopted kids come to America believing that they will have whatever they want whenever they want, and have difficulty with limits. Palmer was especially that way. He would cry and scream if he could only watch one cartoon instead of two, or throw temper tantrum complete with kicking and yelling if we told him to put a toy away so we could leave the house or eat dinner. So we told him that if cartoons and toys made him sad, he shouldn’t have them. After all, we want him to be happy! If cartoons make him sad, he just shouldn’t watch them for the next week! If a toy made him cry, we should either break it or give it away to someone else who will be happy to have it! A particular favorite of mine was when the kids used to refuse to ask to get down from the table. So I’d let them just at the table until they asked to get down. For over an hour. Boy, they really showed me! 😉 I took pictures, which I will show at some important late-high-school event. Or their wedding.

To recognize the level of misbehavior our kids are engaged in by the tone of their laughter. Addie has a particular high-pitched giggle, which automatically earns an, “Addie, are you being good or are you being bad?” question from across the house. 97% of the time there is complete silence from Addie. Then I remind her that she needs to be good. To which she responds with a sheepish, “Okay.”

To turn three pages at a time in a book that is way too long to be read just before bed. I know my children plot to find the longest books they can as bedtime stories. Two can play at this game. As long as Addie is sitting on my right, I can pull it off turning multiple pages at one time. Palmer is too observant. It does take a special diversion to get them to look at something on the page on the left. I have become a master of such techniques, because let’s be real, mommy really needs the little people to go to sleep so daddy and I can catch up on laughing at all the hilariously naughty things they did today. And eat chocolate.

To know which child has their eyes open during prayer without opening mine. Ahem. It must be the Holy Spirit.

To know who really did start it. Addie. She has a special gift.

To say things that my parents said and I swore I never would. “Because I said so.” “If I have to stop this car . . .” “When I was your age . . .” It’s almost like relearning to ride a bike, only you weren’t the one riding it 30 years ago. Some phrases just must be genetic.

Fortunately, our children have survived our initiation into parenthood and are doing well. Most of the time, I have no real clue what I’m doing, but count on the fact that God entrusted them into our care, and so He’s sort of obligated to give us the wisdom and resources to give them what they need.

Our kids began taking their medicine for their imaginary disease today. We knew it would be a battle injecting yucky metallic medicine in their mouths, when they have no understanding of what is going on or why they are taking it, especially since they are not sick. Ahem.

Ken and I thought long and hard about how to explain it. No, they don’t speak English.

We could just force them to take it and swallow. Not so good for trust-building.

We could try to mix it in with food and try to disguise it. No, what if they don’t eat the food? It’s not like we can get more medicine.

So we did what we feel all good parents would do in this situation: bribe them with candy.

Now, lest you think we are totally irresponsible parents, we actually have not given them ANY candy since we have been home. In some ways, their diet has been similar to infants — trying basic and familiar things first, and adding a few new foods per week. Of course we wanted to start with healthy foods, so we just haven’t gotten around to introducing candy. They don’t seem to really like sweets as much as they do vegetables, fruits, and meats anyway.

Ken and I agreed that this was an important enough occasion to break the candy fast.

I carefully drew up the medicine into the oral syringe, grabbed a candy fruit slice (because REAL fruit just won’t do in cases like this), and held both up to Palmer.

“Palmer, this is medicine. If you let me give it to you and swallow it, I will give you a piece of candy.”

His eyes brightened. He nodded. The deal was sealed with a smile.

Squirt. Swallow. Candy.

He ran out of the kitchen giggling, arms waving in the air.

Addie Rose started shouting from the breakfast table in Lingala, “Me! Me! Me!”

So I made her the same deal, and she accepted.

Squirt. Strange face. Swallow. Candy!

She giggled with delight.

Maybe this isn’t going to be so hard after all. This bribery thing really works.

After church today, we walked in the front door of the house with the smell of a crock-pot lunch wafting in the air. Our kids first words?

We took our kids a couple of weeks ago to the Vanderbilt International Adoption Clinic, where we spent 5 hours having all manner of poking, proding, x-rays, and the ever beloved stool sample. Actually, only one child made a “donation” while we were there, so we were sent home with SEVEN containers to collect stool samples from our children. Four from one child, and three from Addie Rose, the “donor.”

One must think that of course this is because they were having abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, irregular stools, etc. No. Our children were completely asymptomatic. But JUST IN CASE they just weren’t telling us that they were having pain, the doctor thought it would be a wise idea to spend hundreds of dollars and multiple gag reflexes collecting and submitting stool samples.

I disagreed. I’m actually in health care myself, which makes me terribly noncompliant by my very nature. The kids were starting school, we had lots of appointments, vaccinations, school testing, and were carting the children to and from work and we were not about to carry around the “hats,” gloves, tongue depressors, and little bottles to submit stool samples from asymptomatic children.

So, two weeks after the “donor” submitted her sample in the doctor’s office, the doctor called me back with the results of the culture, ova and parasites, and giardia antigen. Basically, everything was normal. BUT there was something called blastocystis hominis in her stool, and SOMETIMES this causes abdominal pain. In most people, it is completely normal to have this in their stool, and in fact there are no treatment guidelines because even if people have it, as it tends to resolve on its own. But just in case she thought it might be significant for Addie Rose and Palmer because our children had done so much complaining about abdominal pain.

Oh wait, they hadn’t.

So the doctor wanted to treat both kids for it, with a medicine that basically treats any possible parasite that the stool sample wouldn’t catch, and wouldn’t require us to submit more stool samples.

No stool samples? No chasing our kids to the bathroom every time they have to do a doodle? But we have to treat an imaginary disease. Hmmmmmm. DEAL!

The only problem with the medicine is that it has to be compounded — it doesn’t come in premade form, so you have to get it from a special pharmacy that is willing to mix up the medicine from scratch. Fortunately, our local Walgreens is a compounding pharmacy, so our doctor said she would call in the prescription for both kids on Monday morning.

So, I waited 24 hours, knowing that it would take a little while longer to mix up, and went to the local Walgreens on Tuesday.

They said they had received the prescription for our son the day before, but not our daughter. Actually, her name and date of birth were in the system, but not a prescription.

“Why would you have her name and date of birth if you never got a prescription for her?” I asked.

“Well, I’m sure she’s been a patient here before,” they countered.

“She’s four and just arrived in America. And I’m her mother. She’s never been a patient here. You MUST have the prescription around here somewhere.”

There wasn’t a good answer.

The truth was, even for our son, the delivery truck had failed to offload the medication, so it wouldn’t be ready for our son until later that day. “What about our daughter?” I asked. Well, they didn’t have a prescription for her, so they offered to call the doctor and clarify that the prescription was for both children. After all, the only one that had been diagnosed with an imaginary disease that we were now treating so that I wouldn’t have to submit stool samples, was our daughter. He’s just being treated because he is related to her. Because this is how things work in the world of medicine.

Knowing that compounding a medication again takes time, I went back 48 hours later to pick up the medication for both children.

“Yes, the medicine for your son is ready,” said the pharmacy tech.

“What about my daughter, the one who actually had the (imaginary) disease?”

“No, I’m sorry, we don’t have a prescription on file for her.”

“You mean the prescription you were going to call about two days ago so that by the time I came back both would be ready?”

Blank stare.

The pharmacist came up from behind his pharmadesk and said that he would call immediately and confirm the prescription. Sure enough, he did, and the doctor confirmed that both children had the same prescription for the same imaginary disease. He said it would be ready in an hour.

Not wanting to wait around for an hour, I said that I would come back the following day, because, after all, imaginary diseases are not urgent.

On my way home, I got a call from Walgreens. “Um, remember how we said that we would have the prescription ready later today? Well, it turns out, we used up all of the medicine for your son. So you’re going to have to drive to another Walgreens in another town to pick up hers. But we can even tell you what town to drive to!”

“Oh, it’s no rush, I can pick it up tomorrow,” I insisted.

“Well, we’re afraid that we won’t be able to get the medicine in until next week.”

“You mean, you don’t have a courier service between different Walgreens stores if one runs out of a particular medicine, but another store has it?”

“Yes, in fact, we do.”

“Well, how about we go with that option, and you use your courier service, rather than me driving out-of-town.”

“I guess we can do it, but it won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

“Again, I’m in no hurry to treat an imaginary disease, but what I won’t do is treat one child one week and treat another child another week, nor will I drive out-of-town to buy a medicine from you.”

“Okay, we’ll have it ready tomorrow, here.”

Friday just before noon, I got a phone call from Walgreens telling me that my prescription was ready. Finally! I made my third trip to the same Walgreens.

“We have your prescription ready for your son!” they said cheerfully.

“What about my daughter?”

“We don’t have a prescription for your daughter.”

“This is my third time here. For the same medicine. Could you by any chance check?”

The tech consulted with the pharmacy manager and then returned. “Your daughter’s medicine will be on the courier service that will arrive this afternoon. Would you like to go ahead and buy your son’s medication?”

“Not a chance,” I replied. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, it won’t take that long,” she persisted.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, trying not to lay the sarcasm on too thick as I walked away.

Finally tonight, Saturday night, we went to Walgreens and both prescriptions were ready, a mere 5 days after they were called in. Of course, our insurance didn’t cover them because they don’t cover “alternative drugs” like, ahem, antibiotics, but after 5 days and 4 trips to Walgreens, I was just happy to never have to go back! That was a whole lot of poo over an imaginary disease!

“Does anyone have a cheap car they are willing to sell asap?” one of our Facebook friends posted.

“Oh, heavens,” I thought, “Do I have a cheap car for you!”

Our ’99 Chevy Tracker was a birthday gift from me to Ken over a decade ago. While remarkably rugged, it had seen better days. It had been rear-ended twice and not quite repaired by the Chevy dealership. The dome light blinks uncontrollably. It has a strange vibration over 45 mph. The inside door handle on the driver’s side is missing. One window doesn’t roll down. The air conditioning is anemic.

But we loved that vehicle. Its four-wheel drive had taken us to Canada and back several times, including through snow and ice storms. Though small, it had hauled washing machines, dishwasher, chairs, college students, new puppies, and all manner of junk. It moved down from Indiana with us. It carried me on rotations. It took us on vacations for years.

But still, its reliability was doubtful, and we were hesitant to pour money into it. Now with kids coming in the future, we needed to rethink our transportation options. Our beloved Tracker’s days were numbered.

But who would buy a glitchy ’99 Chevy Tracker? We thought we would do as we had done before, donating the car to charity and taking the tax deduction.

When I saw our friend’s post online, I remarked in jest that I had a car for cheap. When he asked for specs, I thought he was kidding. When his wife texted me the next day, I figured I should respond. So I was honest about all of the things that my brain could think of.

His response? “Sounds great!”

I thought he was kidding.

He asked if he could come look at it and how much we wanted for it. I figured we wanted to get the value of the tax benefit out of it, and I invited him to look at it when Ken was at home. I never thought that once he laid eyes on the vehicle would he actually want it.

Oh, right. This was KEN’S car!

I mentioned it to Ken in passing that someone wanted to look at buying the Tracker, and he flashed the same incredulous smile that I had when I saw the Facebook post.

The next day, our friend came by, and asked if he could take the car for a drive, and Ken said, “Sure. Here are the keys. We know where you live.” After a few minutes he returned and told Ken that he would be back the next day with the money.

“For what?”

“For the Tracker. I’m buying it.”

“Really, how much?”

Perhaps I hadn’t gone into enough details with Ken. Fortunately, Ken was agreeable and the deal was made. Turns out, our friend is extremely handy, and he can fix cars. Nothing that was wrong with the Tracker was anything that concerned him. The glitches could be fixed in his skillful hands. He was coming to get the Tracker the next day.

I had sort of accidentally sold my husband’s car.

And I had to go to a conference the next day. And Ken had to go to work.

Uh, oh. We needed a car.

I apologized profusely for selling Ken’s car, for which he graciously forgave me.

Fortunately, I had done a lot of research about what kind of vehicle would meet our needs and our budget, and we got a fantastic deal at CarMax the very next morning. The money from the Tracker allowed us to put down a down payment on a vehicle. While we had never pictured ourselves as minivan owners, we wanted the ability to haul kids, dogs, equipment, etc. but an SUV was just out of our price range. So when the deal was signed, the car was inspected, and they handed the keys over, it was quite awkward when neither of us wanted them.

“You drive it.”

“No, no, honey, I’ve been driving the newer car for years. You drive it.”

“No, no, I’d rather have you in the new vehicle, for the um, safety. Yeah, the safety.”

We giggled as we argued back and forth as to who HAD to drive the minivan.

So here is the vehicle I now drive. All because I accidentally sold my husband’s car.

My birthday makes me nervous. And it actually has nothing to do with getting older, but more my birth date.

Most people wouldn’t even notice that April 20th is historically a really bad day. But because I remember the date for a different reason, I take note of what happens on that date. In fact, the New York Daily News said this, “In terms of world history, it would be hard to compete with April 20 for the title of Worst Day of the Year.”

1978: Korean Air flight 902 filled with civilians was shot down over the Soviet Union

1984: The Good Friday Massacre, an extremely violent hockey game, was played in Montreal. (Okay, so this wasn’t technically as massacre, but I had to give props to the name.)

1985: The FBI raids the compound of The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas (an event which was suspected in leading to the Oklahoma City bombing)

1999: Columbine High School Massacre

2007: Johnson Space Center shooting

2010: The explosion that led to the massive Gulf Oil Spill

There have also been a couple of close misses, which I found out about on April 20th: the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound, which killed 81 people; and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168. Both of these occurred on April 19th. I attribute this to poor planning or leap year miscalculation.

Fortunately, this year, April 20th seems to have come and gone without much fuss. A doctor’s appointment, babysitting a contractor as he worked on our dishwasher, grading an EKG exam, and watching hockey. The Predators even pulled out a win against the Red Wings to move on to the next round of the NHL playoffs. I celebrated with a birthday dinner of my favorite dishes that my favorite food truck, Riffs, happened to have on their menu.

Our friend Michael Waller introduced me to the musical stylings of Wing a few years ago. How does one describe the music of Wing? I find the best description is merely to say that it is indescribable. The level of her professional talent is astounding, and unforgettable. Some might even say it is life-changing. While Wing covers many other artists’ works, when she comes up with her own piece of work, it is indeed a piece of work.

Michael shared this soon-to-be-classic Christmas carol with me, and I knew immediately that I could not keep it to myself. And thus, I introduce to you “Santa Claus on a Helicopter.”

Thank you, Wing, for bringing so much laughter-to-tears into this Christmas season.

When Ken was a little boy, people would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer was consistent: either an Indian or a robot.

I find that especially funny because his goals, by their very nature, were unattainable. But 7-year-old boys don’t usually think through such things. Eventually his dreams changed to more reasonable aspirations in education and ministry.

Fast forward 30 something odd years. A few years ago, Ken was teaching a General Psychology class at a local community college. One of the things he took his Psychology class through was Jung’s Personality Test, which evaluates a person for personality preferences for things such as extraversion versus introversion, or thinking versus feeling.

Ken has taken numerous personality tests before. And he always scores the same in one area: 100% thinking, 0% feeling.

You know it’s been a rough year when you ask your huband, “What’s been the highlight of our year?” and we subsequently stare at each other in silence for the next fifteen minutes. We finally came up with, “Food trucks?”. But that’s not to say that there haven’t been joys and highlights from a few of our favorite things. Here are a few things that always bring me a smile.

My favorite . . .

Person: Ken

Ice cream: Chocolate fudge brownie

Musical: Sound of Music. There is no question about this.

Movie: My Best Friend’s Wedding — or Tommy Boy if Ken’s around, because I can’t torture him with any movie with the word “Bride” or “Wedding” in the title.

Restaurant: Old Hickory Steakhouse in Opryland Hotel

Food truck: Riff’s

TV Comedy: Modern Family

TV reality show: Survivor

Music: Chris Tomlin, Meredith Andrews, Steven Curtis Chapman

Color: clear . . . or bright pink, maybe turquoise

Cheese: Tillamook sharp cheddar

Pasttime: writing, crafting, bargain hunting

Song: Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue (Part 2) by Jason Gray; One Less by Matthew West